Topic: The problem with atheism. - page 20. (Read 38463 times)

Noobody is arguing about that one particular gene that this site picks out. The genes in question make up a huge majority of your genetic structure, actually. So while these guys "win" on this one example, they still "lose" on the 20,000 others. And, again, it's not proof that "god did it," it's at most proof that "we don't know how it happened."




◾ Because earth used to be constantly bombarded with craters back when it was first coming together. Our solar system consisted of lots and lots of gas and rocks, and as rocks came together through gravitational pull, they became planets. There were still tons of rocks floating around in space, though, and they all kept slamming into earth and other planets and moons. Eventually, the number of leftover rocks decreased, and also earth got a gas atmosphere that burned up most rocks when they entered, and the number of new craters decreased. We still had some huge rocks flying around in space, though, and still do (one is scheduled to come really close in the next few years). Doesn't matter that craters have different dates. Only thing that matters is that one of them is as old as when dinasaurs became extinct.
◾ Because the thing that killed off dinasaurs wasn't a lack of light? It could have been a change in atmospheric composition, or, more likely, a change in global temperature. Cold-blooded dinasaurs died when it got too cold for them to survive, while mamals survived just fine.
◾ Why would an asteroid impact create acid rain? The cloud that gets tossed up is just dirt, not tons of burning carbon and sulfur. Besides, any amount of rain on earth is only a teeny tiny fraction of the amount of water in the oceans. It would be practically impossible for acid rain to polute oceans to the point where all fish die.



Dear god I hope you don't actually believe this. If this were true, you'd think we'd actually find some dragon bones, teeth, skins, scales, or anything else used by humans from that time period. Why do we have tons of antiques made from leather and bone from as far back as a couple thousand years ago, but yet not a single thing made from dragons? You'd think items like that would be extremely valuable, highly sought after, and very carefully preserved.



No amount of catastrophic conditions can fossilize something in just 4000 years, sorry. Takes WAY longer than that. It's not just flesh becoming hard and rigid, it's all biological matter becoming completely replaced with minerals (stone). And no amount of catastrophic conditions can make atoms split apart faster than they actually do, which is how we tell how old things are.



The difference is that science says, "Well, this is the best idea we got, based on this and this and this and this and this. And maybe it's wrong, but at least it's all based on this evidence." Religion says, "This is the idea we must have. Let's find evidence to support it, such as this and this, but not this." One starts with no answer, and tries to find it using whatever it can, the other starts with an answer (your so-called "truth"), and tries to find evidence to fit it.

Sorry, but, unlike what you and your group may believe, evolution is not actually a disputed theory. At all. Not any more than the heliocentric theory, or the theory that the earth is round. There is just way way way too much evidence for it, and every time we make a prediction based on this theory, it gets confirmed yet again. If you want to try to disprove that theory, at most you will make parts of it a bit more questionable. You won't automatically make your fantasy be correct, because the question isn't "Evolution vs Creationism," it's "Evolution vs Creationism vs Zeus vs Aliens vs Hologram vs Just a dream vs Martian migration vs... vs ... vs ... and so on and so forth." To get your creationism theory to even be considered, you'd have to actually find some evidence of something being intelligently designed (so far there's zero of that), or some evidence of a god leaving a message or something behind, one that could not have beeen created by humans, such as with a written book.

I'm curious how intelligent design advocates view other human ancestors and relatives? At times, as many as five or more species of humans lived together. What is the intelligence that leads a creator to create many hominids then kill off all but one? Were these other people-like animals not worthy of worshiping the creator? And why wait so long to create humans? Why wait billions of years?

I'd prefer to believe that I am a pretty fairy princess, with pretty butterfly wings, and a whole stable of pretty pink and purple unicorns (not really), but, alas, reality doesn't give a shit about what I want to believe, and it's more productive to NOT live in a fantasy world.

If I was an inteligent designer, I would have attached all those things to the pelvis, as it makes a far stronger and better support for those muscles. And the claim that "there must have been a modification of the tailbone" is kinda false, as we simply had longer tails, with the same muscles atached to the base of it, and eventually the number of segments in the coccyx reduced from 10, or however many it was, to 3 or 5, leaving us with just the base of our tails.

Does your source say anything about the bible's claim of incorrect number of ribs in males, or of whales having vestigial legs inside their bodies from the time when they used to roam on land as much smaller animals?

There is so much to answer here that I am going to use some articles to get my points across.


About the genetics issue:


see: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v6/n1/human-beta-globin-pseudogenes


The crater?  From another article :
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2002/11/15/dinosaur-demise-theory

Dinosaurs lived with man (many were called dragons by most cultures BTW but us super smart people came up with a new name for them)

From another article:  
I am not sure what you mean about the separate Creation stories?  Can you explain exactly.  I see only one but perhaps it is how I am reading it?

All that said, people have an amazing way of "finding" facts that support their preconceived ideas.  You can say that about Christians but I can say that about what is called "Science" today.  There are many things that are simply theories that are talked about like they are facts that is not good science.  

All of that isn't evidence FOR young earth, it's evidence AGAINST old earth. It doesn't automatically prove that your theory is correct, as there could be any number of reasons for those things to happen, and your theory would actually need some positive evidence to support it. At this point, going by your list, a theory that "God did it like it describes in Genesis" is no better than "Aliens did it," or "Zeus did it" or  even "There was way more helium locked in earth's crust that we expected." Discounting one theory does not automatically prove your own personal one.

Wait wait wait. You go as far as to disbelieve the THEORY OF EVOLUTION? There are so many ways to prove it. The coccyx is one small example that, even if it is wrong, doesn't matter. The REAL important proof comes from GENETICS. We can see useless genes in the human genome. These are left over from evolution. Genetics is what makes us what we are, and through it, we can prove evolution. In addition, how do you explain dinosaurs? The huge crater that is in the Gulf of Mexico from the meteor that wipes them out? No mention of that in genesis, man actually NAMES every creature, and yet, man did not even exist when dinosaurs did. If you are going to say "god put the remnants in the earth on purpose," what POSSIBLE motivation could he have?

Also, there are two completely separate stories of creation inside Genesis, each from a different biblical source. Which one do you believe? Why? What makes it correct and the other false? Why are there two of them?

It just doesn't make sense!

From an article:

The tailbone or coccyx has often been presumed to be vestigial and a leftover remnant to our alleged mammal and reptilian ancestors who also had tails. Evidence that is cited includes the variable number of bony segments humans can have (usually 4 but can be 3 or 5) as well as “babies born with tails.” But these so called tails are not really tails at all and instead are a type of fatty tumor. There are no bones or muscles in them at all, and thus, it cannot truly be considered a vestigial organ.5

Spinney acknowledges that the coccyx now has a “modified function, notably as an anchor point for the muscles that hold the anus in place.” In fact, the coccyx is the anchor point for the muscles that form the entire pelvic diaphragm. Therefore, while the coccyx has a clear function in humans today, the only reason to claim that the function has been modified is because of evolutionary assumptions. If you believe that humans descended from animals that possessed tails, then there must have been a modification of the tailbone. In contrast, if our ancestor Adam was created by God then there was no modification, and our tailbone is just as it always was. Without the evolutionary presupposition, the evidence that the tailbone is vestigial evaporates.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v3/n1/setting-record-straight-vestigial

I have studied and found many things that prove the Genesis account.  The fact that many different cultures have stories about the flood independently is one small thing.  But a few others-  The amount of helium in the world.  There would not be any left at all if the earth was not young because the amount that the earth is losing is at a steady pace.  There is a fantastic book called Starlight and Time that proves that if the Earth was created out of a white hole then the stars could appear so far away because we were on the event horizon.  The fact that we all are related to the same mother and this is proven in genetics is another.  The amount of mutations that have occurred on the earth show that the earth is young based on the fact that there is a mathematical number that happens and it would be much greater than it is.  I could go on ( see http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v7/n4/ten-best-evidences ) but the problem is that even if there are evidences that point in the direction of proving Genesis and the Bible for whatever reason people are blind to them and do not want to see them.

As for sin, I have sinned.  I am still tempted to sin but God helps me avoid temptation and keeps me from sin but I still do sometimes but it grieves Him and me as well.  I guess sin is not a problem for you?   Where does our conscious come from then?  Why do we even have concept of right an wrong?  I guess you think that has evolved too?

I am actually quite saddened that yours is a story of lost faith.  I don't know what exactly happened that brought you to that point.  Did God not come through like you expected Him too?  Did someone hurt you deeply or was it just a case of not having small seeds of doubt creep in and take root?  

Atheists are far more depressed and attempt suicide more often then Christians BTW http://www.adherents.com/misc/religion_suicide.html

"Can you give me some observable evidence of evolution?"

Sure! Look at your butt. You have a tail. It's under your skin, and is called a coccyx. You have no reason to have that tail, and it is actually more of a hindrance at this point (it can break, it causes pain, it gets in the way), but it's there, only because our ancestors actually had a full tail.

I'm not acting. You are. You have to, because your religion demands a level of hypocrisy that leads to an unacceptable rate of depression and suicide. Understand, I was a Christian minister at one time. My hatred for that religion knows NO bounds, but I don't hate Christians. Or "god" either. I've simply come to understand that IF there is a god, it's clearly not that one. It doesn't make sense, form top to bottom. You admit in your own post that Eve seeking knowledge was something YOU would do, and you believe in YHVH and it's avatar.

Further, Sin. What precisely is sin? The root word from which it's derived simply means "missing the mark" or "missing the target". It's larger ramifications ONLY matter to those who believe. Frankly, modern Christianity holds on to the doctrine of hell because fear is the only "weapon" left in their arsenal. They cannot anymore win against knowledge, as just about every argument they put forth is EASILY disproven except the existence of a deity and bio-genesis.Note that last one. Not Evolution, Bio-genesis. Evolution, which I'm sure you or another Christian in this thread will soon attack, is the most tested theory there ever was. It is incompatible with the book of Genesis, and Christian doctrine. If the one is true, the other is false. And the one IS demonstrably true. Contrary to Christian claims, evolutionary theory has nothing to do with the ORIGIN of life, thus does not by itself preclude a deity. It precludes YOUR deity, because we have irrefutable evidence that the Genesis account is just plain wrong from everything after "In the beginning..."

You know where I stand on that!    Here is a movie you will love to hate Rassah:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0u3-2CGOMQ

Then sin must have entered the world hundreds of millions of years ago, at the same time as life did.

Why does God get blamed for it? Because either god is all powerful and created everything, or he is not.


False. I have felt that way about a lot of people in the past (bullies mostly). I overcame that hate not because of god, but because I simply decided they are not worth my time and energy.

God's wisdom if foolishness to men.  I know that I am not as intelligent as most people on this board.  Maybe that is a good thing though.  Sometimes the really "smart" people get drunk on their own intelligence.  But that said, it seems something I said really ticked you off.  I was not trying to do that at all.  I just have strong views about my faith as you can see. But I take that as a sign that you have some heated feelings about this.  Will pray for whatever it is that has made you so annoyed with Christians.  

You act like I enjoy the fact that God is punishing people for eternity.  Well, there may have been a few people in my life where I was hopeful for that, but even in those cases God has helped me overcome my hate and pray for them instead of hating them (something only God can do BTW).

My point was that God loves us all.  He wills that all of us come to repentance.  Why there is a Hell is beyond my understanding but I did not write the Bible and even though you found it to not be true (I do appreciate that you admit you have at least studied it!)  I have found it is true.  

Thanks to eve in the garden sin has entered the world and now we have a not so perfect world.  (If I was Eve I would have tasted of the forbidden fruit too so she will get no judgement from me on that one) but for whatever reason we now have a fallen planet.  It is not as God intended.  Hell was not intended for us as humans but for the fallen angels and it grieves God greatly that we choose to go there.  Perhaps it is our own choice that sends us there, not God's.  It is a different way to look at it.

So, what, because Eve decided knowledge was a good idea, all the animals who were "named" a bit earlier divided themselves into predator and prey, virii were introduced, germs started to exist, plants altered their functions to defend or aggress... all because ONE woman had the audacity to learn something?\

Please. You Christians really need to learn something of the physical world before putting your "gospel" in front of even moderately educated people. This is not the dark ages, or even the fifties. This is the age of the internet. The "forbidden fruit" is at EVERYONE's fingertips. Learn new tricks, or your religion will fade into the dustbin of history like the thousands before it.

How about agree not to torture for all eternity anyone who has either never heard of him, or doesn't think just stories without evidence is enough to believe in him?


That frankly sounds sick. Who in their right mind accepts human sacrifice of someone's son in exchange for the bad things they have done? I would rather people pay for their own sins personally. Also, not for all eternity {which is a really long time). And also not for random acts that someone just decides are sin. Not believing in something because there is no evidence for it is not evil, in my view.

BTW, I'm sure I've mentioned it, but if I haven't, I've read the bible all the way through, first when I was about 5, and then a few times again since then. I only really studied it, instead of reading it like a fairy tale, when I started to question it much later.

What if everything was perfect until sin entered the world?  Sin is pretty much the problem with this world Rassah.  It would be an awesome place if it weren't for that.  Why does God get the blame for sin?